Washington DC - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday advocated for the US to use its significant financial power to influence and shape the decisions of other nations.
According to Bessent, the US' financial power could be much better utilized as a foreign policy tool, not just to advance Washington's agenda, but to assist and influence other nations.
"I believe that I can use the balance sheet of the US for foreign policy," Bessent said during an event at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Cox School of Business. "So, we have a foreign policy goal and that is to create allies in the Western hemisphere."
"Argentina was the front-runner for that and it was my belief that the Milei government had sound policies," he continued.
Bessent's comment about Argentina came in reference to the Trump administration's multibillion-dollar bailout package to assist Argentina's far-right President Javier Milei ahead of the country's midterm elections last year.
The move was an attempt to shore up the Argentinian economy, which continues to struggle under Milei's leadership. President Donald Trump and Milei are close allies, raising questions about whether taxpayer money was being used to provide electoral assistance.
Argentina is not the only South American country for the Trump administration to influence politically. Most notably, in January Trump ordered the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
He has also waged a brutal economic war against Cuba, plunging the nation into a shocking humanitarian crisis.
Bessent stood by such interventions, however, and even ranted about what he saw as the failures of many countries thought to be the US' allies.
"At the end of the day, the private sector is what creates wealth," he claimed. "We want to give good incentives, we want to put up guardrails, we wanna have smart regulations, but government's not gonna create prosperity."